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What's a Wreck?

A Cake Wreck is any cake that is unintentionally sad, silly, creepy, inappropriate - you name it. A Wreck is not necessarily a poorly-made cake; it's simply one I find funny, for any of a number of reasons. Anyone who has ever smeared frosting on a baked good has made a Wreck at one time or another, so I'm not here to vilify decorators: Cake Wrecks is just about finding the funny in unexpected, sugar-filled places.

It's nice to see the bakers here in the U.S. aren't picking sides when it comes to Super Bowl cakes. Nope, they wreck 'em all equally.

Well, one out of three ain't ba....no, actually, that IS bad.Never mind.

Ok, I have to admit it: when Anne-Marie mentioned the "terrible towels" in today's earlier post, I had no idea what she was talking about. Fortunately, a reader has informed me that these are yellow towels Steelers fans like to wave about during game days. (I suppose it's too much to hope that this is a tradition somehow inspired by Douglas Adams?)Heh, you sports fans make my wearing a Bajoran earring to a Star Trek Convention seem almost normal.

ANYway, so knowing about the towel thing helps a little when viewing this cake:

But you still have to wonder: did the baker feel even the slightest pang of irony?

Oh, and remember a few ages back when I made a crack about how next bakeries will be decorating our loaves of bread?

Oh man, I am so kicking myself for not getting a picture of a cake I saw at Wal-Mart the day before the Championship game here in AZ. It said "Go Cardinals!", but the colors of the cake were yellow and black. At the time I thought the decorator was color-blind. Now I know she was psychic!

Still, these wrecky Cards cakes hurt my soul. They just can't catch a break, even with cake decorators!

>> (I suppose it's too much to hope that this is a tradition somehow inspired by Douglas Adams?)

Unfortunately, no. The Terrible Towel was created by the late, great Myron Cope (Yoi! Double yoi!) Well, sort of. It was his idea to wave towels at games, and a local department store, sick of having all of its yellow and black towels sell out, created the Official Terrible Towel.

The lovely thing about them is that Myron Cope's son, who has autism, is at a wonderful facility out in Coraopolis for people with various mental and physical disabilities, and all proceeds from every towel sold around the world go to support this school and a couple of related facilities in the area (I used to work at an in-patient facility for children with MR and autism,and we received Terrible Towel money there).

So yes, we Pittsburghers are intensely aware of the irony of Terrible Cakes (I had a Terrible Cupcake earlier today, and many people were making appropriate jokes while talking to the baker) and Terrible Cookies and Terrible Muffins. And we are damn proud of it.

I wonder if they just put Go Cards! on the cakes - would they even have spelled that correctly? So funny. I've been checking the cakes here in Phoenix to see if anyone would dare put out a cake like that to sell here. None so far - phewwww!

Hee. The cakes are painful. I'm also delighted by your dorkiness.... I usually dress as Major Kira for Halloween, and occasionally wear my Bajoran earring to work. Hm, if I can find it today, I'll wear it to D&D tonight. :D Maybe I can convince my gaming group that we should game instead of watch football this year...

Why does the "Terrible Cake" make me think of Kraft Cheese Singles?And I wonder if these wreckerators have just never seen dog poo before, otherwise I would think they would stop using globs of brown stuff to decorate things.

I've got four Terrible Towels on the back of a chair right here just waiting for Sunday... Pittsburgh is so proud of our Terrible Towels and their legacy. Never thought of making of a Terrible Cake, though, I'll admit... the wheels of creativity are turning...

I have more than misspellings on my mind when I see the double "cardnials" cakes. What is the lower cakes sposda be shaped like? Field goal posts, or worse: hand-standing football players with their team name draped across't the crotch?

As a fandom costumer my usual retort to accusations of 'why do you waste your time with that' or 'dressing up is for kids' is that what we do is no less ridiculous than the people who paint themselves and act like idiots at sporting events.

All this football talk, and what I'm wondering is whether I've ever met you at a con! Mine are Weekend On The Promenade (San Diego and Burbank), and Slanted Fedora in Philly, Oct. 2001. (That was a fun flight!)

I have DS9 on the brain! (And have never actually watched a football game, American or Canadian.)

I've been a lurker here for a while now - LOVE the blog. It always make me laugh and cringe at the same time. I wanted to say something on this post, though! I LOVE that you mentioned both Hitchhiker's Guide and Star Trek! I actually own a Bajoran earring, and I understood all of your sci-fi references perfectly. I wanted to hug you!! :) Thanks for keeping us all entertained.

popkernels said...I have more than misspellings on my mind when I see the double "cardnials" cakes. What is the lower cakes sposda be shaped like? Field goal posts, or worse: hand-standing football players with their team name draped across't the crotch?

The lower cakes were cupcake cakes that were supposed to resemble goal posts with ginormous footballs flying at them.

What the picture doesn't show, because i snapped it after pointing out the error to a store employee who promptly removed the cakes, was that the "Go Cardnials" cakes were two of four that were ALL MISSPELLED.

When i went by the bakery a few minutes later an annoyed-looking decorator was scraping off the "cardnials" with a spatula.

Thank you so much for the "Towel Day" info...I had no idea! (and here I thought I was a hoopy frood..gah). I have, on the other hand, been accused of being hip, although I have no trouble seeing past my pelvis.

Super Bowl Sunday is simply a day to go out and enjoy crowd-free activities while the throngs sit in front of their TVs, IMO.